I. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a manufacturing system and more particularly to a means for the manufacture of tires and similar articles. Specifically, the instant invention relates to a tire assembly means employing a plurality of tire building drums which are transferred to various work stations in order to apply components to the tire building drums and thus fabricate a tire. The tire building drums are maintained at an optimal angle with respect to the equipment employed to fabricate the tire and the means employed to transfer the tire building drums in order to facilitate access to the tire building drum by both the equipment employed to fabricate a tire and equipment operators.
II. Description of the Prior Art
The use of tire building drums in connection with a series of machines between which the drums are transported in order to fabricate a tire is old in the art as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 1,818,955 to Maas. Maas discloses a machine in which tire building cores are transported past a series of stations, each of which is equipped to perform a special operation upon the tires under construction in order to effect fabrication of a tire. U.S. Pat. No. 1,876,759 to Romine relates to material handling apparatus particularly adapted to be used in connection with assembly operations and discloses the use of a moving pallet in order to effect material movement. U.S. Pat. No. 1,964,363 to Ostling et al., relates to an apparatus for manufacturing tires employing an endless chain conveyor adapted to carry tire building drums and accessory mechanisms along a track and in continuous motion while operators apply material and perform certain manual operations thereon, in combination with mechanical means for supplying materials in sequence of operation and according to consumption requirements. U.S. Pat. No. 2,071,716 to Wikle relates to a conveyor method of building pneumatic tires in which a plurality of tire building units are disposed about a circular rotatable table and are adapted for complimentary intermittent association with supply devices opposed to the rotatable table. U.S. Pat. No. 2,253,781 to Haase et al., relates to a tire building apparatus employing a plurality of tire building machines arranged in a group, conveying means for supplying the operators at the machines with the proper material when required, and servicing means for supplying material to the conveyor and other servicing means for removing finished tires therefrom. U.S. Pat. No. 2,319,643 to Sternad et al., relates to a tire building machine employing a series of tire building drums which are intermittently conveyed in spaced relation, with their axes disposed across the line of travel, past a plurality of chucking stations, where, during the intervals between conveyor movements, the drums are automatically lifted from the conveyor and centered between driving cones and various operations comprising applying and rolling the various elements of the tire casing onto the drums are consecutively performed. U.S. Pat. No. 2,818,907 to Sapp relates to a tire building machine having a series of collapsible tire building drums which are carried by a conveyor through each of a series of successive building stations. At each station the drum then at that station is chucked and rotated, if necessary, and some portion of the tire building procedure is performed. Upon the completion of the particular building operation at each station the drum is unchucked and returned to the conveyor and then all of the drums are advanced to the next succeeding station. U.S. Pat. No. 3,281,304 to Black et al., relates to a tire building machine having means for continuously supplying fabric to tire building drums and means for driving the drums longitudinally and rotationally along a support to wind the fabric helically around the drums to form a ply for tire carcasses. U.S. Pat. No. 3,543,392 to Perry et al., relates to an automatic manufacturing system having a plurality of work stations to which a variety of work pieces are carried by a network of conveyors, in which means are provided to identify each work piece and means are provided to direct the work piece through a path variable in accordance with load conditions in the network having various work stations where selected operations are automatically performed on the work piece.
Although the prior art discloses means for automating the manufacture of tires by employing a substantially continuous conveying means to transport headstock units or tire building drums to a plurality of applicator stations in order to cause a tire to be manufactured as the building drums traverse the assembly line, it should be noted that this prior art typically uses moveable headstock units which have their axes of rotation parallel to the direction of movement of the conveying means or alternatively employ a plurality of tire building drums which are disposed perpendicular to the direction of travel of the conveying means.
The use of multiple headstock units as disclosed for instance by U.S. Pat. No. 1,964,363 to Ostling et al., substantially increases the cost of the assembly line by requiring an excessively high number of headstock drive units and further increases the cost of such a manufacturing line by increasing the length of the assembly line due to this orientation of the drive units.
Other tire manufacturing lines employing multiple tire building drums as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 1,818,955 to Maas typically employ a series of tire building drums disposed with their axes of rotation perpendicular to the direction of movement of the conveying means which transports the tire building drums to the various applicator stations. The main disadvantage with this sort of configuration concerns the location of the applicator equipment in order to allow the applicator equipment to operate on the tire building drums. In this configuration, the applicator equipment must be located either above or below the transfer means. This location of the equipment generally raises or lowers such equipment away from operator height and thus substantially reduces operator access to the tire building drums in order to effect manual operations or quality inspection operations in the tire building process. This arrangement also substantially reduces operator access to the applicator equipment for servicing.
There is, therefore, a need for a tire assembly means which may be economically produced and which further allows operator access to the tire building drums in order to facilitate construction and quality inspection of the tires.
The instant invention solves these problems by providing a continuous conveying means which is adapted to transport a plurality of tire building drums to a plurality of applicator stations which are adapted to apply to the tire building drums various components of a tire in order to effect the construction of a first stage tire when a tire building drum has completely traversed the conveying means. A positional relationship is maintained between the tire building drums, conveying means and applicator stations which provides a compact assembly line and affords operator access to the tire building drums and the applicator equipment.